Andrea Miller has been recognized as one of the wind industry’s most influential women.

In January 2014, Andrea Miller walked through the doors of Apex Clean Energy, new to the company, but already a veteran in the wind industry. With two decades of asset management experience, Miller has helped drive progress not only at Apex, but throughout the wind industry as a whole.

Now, for all her accomplishments, A Word About Wind has named Miller to its first-ever Women’s Power List, which honors the top 100 women working in the wind industry.

Miller atop a turbine in 2012.

“I was totally surprised by the honor,” says Miller, Apex’s vice president of asset management. “Then they showed me the other women who were recognized, and I felt very flattered.”

A Word About Wind published the first list to celebrate International Women’s Day. The report recognizes women who are leading the industry in their respective sectors, whether that’s manufacturing, corporate purchasing, investing, or developing.

“It is no secret that there is a gender imbalance in the wind industry. This is a trait that wind shares with other parts of the energy and financial services industries, and we don’t pretend we can change that,” reads the report’s website. “What we can do, however, is mark the achievements of the top women working in wind—and hopefully inspire more talented individuals to enter the sector.”

“I’m proud of the company I share in this magazine. They are very strong women in every sector of wind,” says Miller. “I certainly hope to promote other women to be strong leaders in this industry.”

Miller’s path in wind began at Texas A&M University, where she studied civil environmental engineering and went on to a few less-than-glamorous jobs.

Miller’s aspirations for a cleaner earth and her connection to the people whose lives she changed throughout the years drove her onward to bigger and better roles.

“I always knew I wanted to change the world to make it a cleaner, better place. I graduated and did environmental engineering for a couple of years,” says Miller. “I cleaned up sludge ponds and underground storage tank sites, and I did design engineering on sludge, water, and wastewater treatment plants. I was taking soil samples, and I would come home covered with stuff that hadn’t been identified yet.”

Miller’s aspirations for a cleaner earth and her connection to the people whose lives she changed throughout the years drove her onward from the grime to bigger and better roles.

Before joining the Apex team, Miller graduated with a master of business administration from the University of Houston, directed energy strategy for Owens Corning, and spent three years managing a billion-dollar portfolio of wind farms for BP.

In the years since Miller started in wind, and even in the three-and-a-half years she has led Apex’s asset management team, the industry has seen significant strides in operations and management. Miller was one of the leaders behind these advances, driving the transition to a data-driven O&M perspective.

“By analyzing and utilizing data, you can add more value. A small loss may seem insignificant, but in reality, over time, it’s huge,” says Miller. “We identify red flags before they even fault a turbine. We call up the site, let them know we’re seeing some anomalies, and ask them to check it out. Sure enough, there’s often something going on that we can tweak to avoid any failure.”

Miller’s leadership has enabled Apex to keep turbines spinning and operating at peak performance, rather than simply spinning. Her work has pushed the company, and the industry, to look beyond reactive efforts and consider ways to proactively manage assets to achieve maximum capacity.

Cat Strumlauf

Manager, Corporate Communications

Cat works on media relations and digital content creation for Apex projects and at the corporate level. Prior to joining Apex, she worked in broadcast journalism as a reporter. Cat holds a MSJ from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and a BA in marketing and entrepreneurship from the College of William and Mary's Mason School of Business.